How do lasers kill hair?

Contrary to what you see when Stormtroopers are shooting blasters at Luke Skywalker and friends, the laser energy in laser hair removal doesn’t vaporize the hair. No, that would be dangerous, plus it wouldn’t do anything about the root cause of the hair growth, the hair follicle.

Instead, our expert team at Beaty sets the laser wavelength to match the color of your body hair. Then we rain a short pulse of laser energy down onto your unwanted hairs, unsuspecting though they are. The hair absorbs the laser’s light energy, and this energy instantly converts to heat. The heat travels down the hair shaft into the hair follicle where it is anchored, and the heat damages or destroys the follicle. Voila, no more hair from that follicle! You only have a few hundred or thousand follicles to go, but you get the idea.

The growth phase counts

Unfortunately, your unwanted hairs are cagey individuals. For the laser energy to be effective in damaging the follicles, the hairs need to be in the growth phase of the hair cycle. This is when the hair is actively rooted into the hair follicle. But hair can also be in the transitional stage or the resting phase. This is the path by which your body sheds hair and starts growing new hair. When hair is either in transition or the follicle is resting, the hair is in the process of being shed or is already shed, so the laser energy can’t get down into the follicle.

The key is to catch as many of your unwanted hairs in the growth phase as possible. That’s why it takes a series of laser sessions to remove most of your unwanted hair effectively; about 85 percent is the norm. At Beaty, we find from 4-6 laser hair removal sessions give patients the degree of permanent hair reduction they like to see.

An Atlanta winter is a good time for bidding adieu to your unwanted hair. Contact us at (770) 753-0053 to schedule your laser hair removal session.